Brown Gets Sleek Deals on Showy Cars : Autos: The Speaker bought two sporty vehicles in a year. A manufacturer, a prominent dealer and a legislator helped smooth the way.
Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, whose love for luxury sports cars may equal his passion for politics, got good deals on a couple of high-priced automobiles in the last year, but he didn’t have to haggle over the price.
The powerful San Francisco Democrat picked up a Corvette at a “fleet deal” from a San Diego-area car dealer who heads a group that lobbies in Sacramento. Brown also bought a limited-edition 1991 Acura NSX at $20,000 below the going rate in a purchase arranged through the manufacturer.
The Corvette deal was set up by another politician with a passion for fast automobiles, Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana), who briefly owned a stake in a National City car franchise.
Brown saved $500 to $1,000 in sales commissions on the Corvette by dealing directly with Robert H. Baker, a former partner of Robbins and owner of several San Diego-area car dealerships.
“It was like selling to a rental car company,” Baker said of the 1989 deal. “It’s a little better price than the general public, but I still made a buck on it. . . . The car is in the low $30,000 range. I made between 3% and 5%.”
Baker is president of the Motor Car Dealers of Southern California, a group that regularly lobbies the Legislature on bills affecting dealerships. A year ago, for example, the group backed a bill that allowed car dealers to raise the fees they charge customers for processing documents by $10 a vehicle. The measure, enacted last year, could cost consumers as much as $23 million a year.
But Baker discounted any connection between legislation and the Corvette sale.
“I’ve never dealt with Willie as president of the Southern California Motor Car Dealers, but I might in the future,” Baker said.
Baker said that he described the Corvette transaction to federal authorities who are investigating how Robbins in 1987 acquired a share in an Acura dealership now owned by Baker.
Robbins is the subject of a continuing grand jury investigation into allegations of political corruption in the Capitol. Robbins could not be reached for comment.
Sources familiar with that inquiry have repeatedly said that Brown is not a target of the probe. Michael Reese, Brown’s press secretary, said he could not comment on the Corvette transaction. Brown bought an even more expensive car last week from Carmichael Acura, two years after first telling the manufacturer, American Honda Motor Co., he was interested in purchasing one of the aluminum-body, high-performance cars. The autos are in such short supply that they are selling for $20,000 or more above the manufacturer’s suggested $60,000 price, according to industry sources and advertised sales in Auto Week magazine.
Brown’s purchase of the car at the sticker price, reported in Thursday’s Sacramento Union, was a straightforward transaction, said Brown spokesman Michael Reese.
“He didn’t haggle. He did not deal. He didn’t ask for any cut,” he said.
A Honda spokesman said the manufacturer asked the dealership to sell Brown the car at the sticker price.
In the past, American Honda has hired lobbyists to represent the company’s interest in a variety of bills before the Legislature, including measures regulating noise from off-road vehicles and requiring that customers be notified when their cars are repaired with parts made by a company other than the original manufacturer.
But Reese stated that Brown promised Honda nothing in setting the price for his car. “There is clearly no evidence he has done this in exchange for anything, except to satisfy his passion for beautiful automobiles,” Reese said.
Honda spokesman Kurt Antonius acknowledged that the number of Acura NSX cars available in the United States is far less than demand and that only about 5% are sold for the $60,000 sticker price.
“We asked the dealer (Carmichael Acura) to sell a car to Willie Brown,” Antonius said. “That’s what we asked them to sell it to him for--$60,000.”
The owner of the dealership, Rick Niello, said that he has sold a number of cars to Brown. “He’s a good customer of ours,” Niello said.
Antonius said the company arranged a similar deal on an NSX for filmmaker George Lucas and for the same reason as Brown: “He’s a well-known person. He’s recognizable, an opinion leader. We’d like to help take care of those people. There’s nothing in return.”
Donald Trump is now on the company’s waiting list for the sports car--because his request came after Brown’s, Antonius said.
These are not the first instances of Brown receiving good deals on fancy cars.
More than a year ago, he told The Times that he had purchased a jet black Porsche Turbo from an El Cajon auto dealer in 1986 for less “than the normal market price.” Brown declined to name the dealer, but described him as a close friend.
Brown said that investigators from an unnamed agency had examined the deal on the false assumption that the car was purchased from a drug dealer.
